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Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

by Troy Collins
2016 marks the centennial anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service. In honor of this auspicious occasion, celebrated trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith composed a titular six-part suite for the Golden Quintet, an augmented version of his long-running flagship quartet. Rather than simply attempting to transpose scenic vistas and natural grandeur into pure sound, Smith explains in ...
Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

by Mark Sullivan
The U.S. National Park Service celebrates its centennial in 2016 (it was created in 1916 when Congress passed the Organic Act). There are many celebrations planned, but few are likely to match the power and individuality of Wadada Leo Smith's epic six-part suite. Over the two discs (a bit over 90 minutes total playing time) Smith ...
Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

by Karl Ackermann
In the last half-decade of the inspirational forty-five year career of Wadada Leo Smith, he has generated one bona fide masterpiece after another, building and expanding on the qualities that consistently push his music to an apex with no apparent upper limit. With his four-and-a-half hours Pulitzer Prize finalist Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform Records, 2012) he ...
Jazz From Around the World: Asia

by Hrayr Attarian
Asia is the most culturally and ethnically diverse continent. It is, therefore, hard to distill all its jazz influenced musical legacies into 10 albums. Some countries have robust jazz scenes that, nevertheless, are fundamentally derivative of European and American styles. In other musical cultures jazz has just recently made inroads. Below are 10 historic records that ...
Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

by Dan McClenaghan
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has a feel for the epic in his art, on recordings like: America (Tzadik Records, 2009), a duet set with drummer Jack DeJohnette; America's Third Century Spiritual Awakening," from his first Golden Quartet (Tzadik Records, 2000) outing; Occupy The World (TUM Records, 2013), with the Finish big band, Tumo; The Great Lakes ...
Wadada Leo Smith Golden Quartet at La Sala Rossa

by Mike Chamberlain
Wadada Leo Smith Golden Quartet La Sala Rossa Suoni Per Il Popolo Montreal, Quebec June 2, 2016 The Suoni Per Il Popolo, the annual June festival organized by the people at La Sala Rossa and Casa del Popolo, opened its Sala Rossa portion of the ...
Chris Dingman: The Subliminal and the Sublime

by Dave Wayne
Search the word subliminal" and you get the following: below the threshold of sensation or consciousness; perceived by or affecting someone's mind without their being aware of it." Do the same for sublime" and you have to be sure you include the word definition" or else you get the website for the popular ska- metal band. ...
Rob Reddy: Bechet: Our Contemporary

by Glenn Astarita
Prominent New York City progressive saxophonist and composer, Rob Reddy contemporizes innovative soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet's artistic persona with his large ensemble, featuring several longtime associates, violinist Charles Burnham, bassist Dom Richards and drummer Pheeroan Aklaff. Reddy doesn't simply restate the past, but more importantly intertwines the trad jazz component with a scintillating and upbeat commingling ...
Rob Reddy: Bechet: Our Contemporary

by Troy Collins
With so much history to explore, tribute albums to jazz greats have become an established custom, regularly issued by artists of varying experience, from neophytes to masters. The most efficacious of these homages provide a fresh perspective on longstanding traditions, tracing the lineage of current concepts to past advances. A salient example of this phenomenon is ...
Don Byron: Tuskegee Experiments

by John Kelman
For this column I step away from my avoidance of personalization because its roots and intent are, indeed, very, very personal. The germination of this column began as the result of two coinciding events. First, after months of relative inactivity due to a health matter that, while thankfully non-life threatening and treatable, could take ...